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The Pirates clubbed 170 home runs as a team last season, which was the fourth-highest total in the National League. Their 170 bombs was a big increase from a total of 107 in 2011, when they finished 27th out of 30 MLB teams in the HR department. Here’s a look at the five longest Bucco homers of the 2012 season, via ESPN Home Run Tracker:

Bill James’ first batch of projections for the 2013 season were recently released and can be found on the player pages at FanGraphs. Here’s a look at some of the Pirates hitters are projected to perform next year:

– James has Alex Presley bouncing back with a .288 average after a sophomore slump campaign in which he hit just .237 and traveled to Triple-A Indianapolis a couple of times.

– Andrew McCutchen is projected to regress a bit after his MVP-caliber year. A .286 average with 24 homers would be nice, but not as stellar as his .327 avg/31 homers in 2012.

– Clint Barmes is expected to do pretty much the same thing at the plate as he did last season.

– Gaby Sanchez is pretty “meh” at .263 batting average with 11 home runs and 44 runs batted in. Another player the Bucs picked up at July’s deadline, Travis Snider, is in the same boat – .278 average with 11 HR and 43 RBI.

– James still projects Garrett Jones to put up decent power, but expects a 20 point drop off in batting average (.274 to .254).

– Jose Tabata will look to continue his disappointing career. Another 3 homer year with just 12 stolen bases; at least his average is projected to jump up to .278.

– Michael McKenry is expected to have a pretty similar season. It’ll be interesting to see how he adjusts to a larger role in 2013.

– Neil Walker is projected to have a nice season. We’ll take a .275 average and 17 homers any day from a starting second baseman.

– James projects Pedro Alvarez to keep improving upon his solid season in 2012. Another season with about 30 homers and somewhere around 90 RBI would be great from Pedro.

– Last but not least, Starling Marte is expected to have a big time season. A .297 average with 15 home runs and 31 stolen bases would be tremendous for Starling. It’s hard to predict his performance since he’s unproven and appeared in just 47 games, but it still gets us excited to think about the potential he has.

Sometime within the next week or so, we’ll take a look Bill James’ predictions for the Pirates pitchers.

GI Jones definitely put up some strong numbers. His power helped keep the Bucs afloat whenever Cutch struggled, and his defense seemed to get better as he became the every-day first baseman. Neil put up some unreal numbers in June and July, and despite his season-ending injury in September, he still was one of the best second basemen in the league. His development over the past three years has really shown. He combined with Barmes to be a very strong tandem up the middle. Clint, despite some disappointing offensive numbers, was solid at shortstop. Many even thought he should have been up for a Gold Glove. His offensive struggles only seemed to be highlighted when the team struggled, which isn’t really fair to a shortstop who is more known for his defense. At the hot corner, Pedro had some major ups and downs. He displayed his cannon of an arm, but it sometimes resulted in the ball landing 15 rows up in the stands. At the plate, his streakiness really showed. There were times you couldn’t get a fastball by him, and there were times where he looked absolutely lost at the plate. Despite that, he still ended up with 30 bombs and 85 RBIs, and could very well be on his way to 35/100 seasons very soon. Gaby Sanchez was acquired at the trade deadline and showed some promise. He came in as the Pirates plummeted, so his numbers are hard to gauge. Harrison, Mercer, and the rest of the bench weren’t too great. Despite J-Hay’s and Jordy’s versatility, they can’t hit at all. The Pirates’ lack of infield depth really showed when Walker missed significant time in August and September.

July 3rd, 2012Drew Sutton is pied in the face by A.J. Burnett after his walk-off home run lifted the Bucs over the Astros, 8-7.

July 9th, 2012Andrew McCutchen connects on one of his two home runs; he went 3 for 5 with four RBI and three runs scored. Cutch and the Pirates finished the first half with a bang, as they crushed the Giants by a score of 13-2.

July 9th, 2012Andrew McCutchen participates in the 2012 State Farm Home Run Derby in Kansas City.

July 16th, 2012Pedro Alvarez is congratulated by his teammates after he tied the game with a three-run home run. The bomb came on the first pitch after a 58 minute rain delay. However, the Rockies beat the Pirates, 5-4, on a sacrifice fly by Dexter Fowler.

July 26th, 2012Starling Marte rounds the bases after hitting a home run on the very first pitch of his Major League career.

July 31st, 2012A.J. Burnett and Rod Barajas embrace after Burnett’s one-hit, complete game shutout of the Chicago Cubs. A.J. lost his no-hit bid to Adrian Cardenas with two outs in the bottom of the eighth. The Bucs beat the Cubs, 5-0.

On July 26th, 2011, the Pittsburgh Pirates and Atlanta Braves played a 19 inning game that last six hours and 39 minutes. It ended in Atlanta’s favor, ultimately because of a blown call at home plate by umpire Jerry Meals. It was the 101st game of the year for the Bucs, and their record dropped to 53-48.

As for the game, Michael McKenry launched a homer in the second, Nate McLouth and Fredi Gonzalez were ejected in the ninth, and Brian McCann left with an oblique strain in the 10th. Daniel McCutchen pitched an unreal 5.1 innings, and threw 92 pitches. The Bucs used 20 different players in the game. Andrew McCutchen went 0 for 6 but drew three walks; he saw 38 total pitches. Pedro Alvarez was 1 for 7 with four strikeouts. The starting lineup for the Pirates that night:

With one out in the bottom of the 19th, Atlanta pitcher Scott Proctor stepped to the plate. He hit a dribbler to third, and Julio Lugo charged to the plate. McKenry applied a quick swipe tag after receiving the throw from Alvarez, and it appeared Lugo was out. He didn’t even reach home plate, but was called safe by Meals. The Pirate fans who were still awake at 1:52 in the morning (technically July 27th) were enraged.

Many people blame the second half collapse on the “Jerry Meals Game” but that’s not entirely accurate. Sure, it was a mentally and physically draining game for the Pirates, but the pitching was set to regress and they weren’t exactly built to win. Still, they were just 19-42 after July 26th.